Mile 49—, and: Mile 57—
"Mile 49--" and "Mile 57--" leverage ethnography and lyric poetry to explore the experience of running the 2019 Never Summer 100K Ultramarathon in Northern Colorado. In these works, the speaker moves between the present moment of the race and memories of childhood in Appalachia.
lyric poetry, ethnography, ultramarathon running, Appalachia, Cherokee, queer studies
MILE 49—
Clear Lake Trail
Once was blue and his hands were poplar leaves and his bodywould only become visible once the moon fell behind cloud.Nothing is ever seen by opening one's eyes. Without footprintshe would wander the streambed out back, fireflies lightingthe holler more metropolis than Monongahela. Sometimes hewould try to turn inside out, turn himself outside in, shakinghis hands in hope the skin would loosen from the elbow,peel off the forearm, and then he could shake loose the gritand stars trapped and filling each finger. How much couldbe solved just by shaking hard enough. There are no stars,no diamonds, without the friction of dirt and dust. He is thedirt, passing white with a well-kept lawn covering all thatred. Tsalagi, Tsalagi, Tsalagi. He is the cyanide inside eachappleseed, thigh wrapped in a garter of barbed wire. Any skinbecomes more silver with scars. Stars. Skin more star-filled.Peeling his hands off like gloves, wet flay of muscle bit bywind. No boy can be common when his fingers drip diamonds.No boy can be hey you, can be get lost, can be wish you werenever born, queer. O this river blue. This river brown. This boyburning, burning, burning out his mind. [End Page 160]
MILE 57—
Pennock Trail
There was a boy who was a boy who was a tree who was ariver and a rock and a cloud. Who was a nothing more thana something who wanted to be nothing but a flash under skyover field. Who wanted to be a space between dusk and darkbetween night and sunrise when the temperature drops justbefore dawn and the ghosts of the hollers come running backto their beds. Who was a breath when he should have beena fist, a kiss when he should have been a kick, some ill-timedsparkle of a boy in his mother's dress, a bruised boy when hisfather came home early when the mines got too hot to workone summer day. Who stood naked in his changing body outin the grapevines and crushed the long black fruit in his hands,smearing his face in darkness. Who wanted just to pass, passwhite, pass straight, pass cool, pass normal. Who wanted toremain 59 pounds forever. Who wanted things that couldnever be named. Not things, people. Who would sleep besidethe river, in the crook of the old sycamore, out in a tent ofbranches and leaves on the game trail. Who hoped, every day,to wake changed into a deer, a good boy. Who wanted to run,and run, and run until he woke up from this dream. Surely thisis a dream. Let it be a dream because no one can hear me. [End Page 161]
Lucien Darjeun Meadows is a writer of English, German, and Cherokee ancestry from the Appalachian Mountains. An awp Intro Journals Project winner, Lucien has received fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, American Alliance of Museums, National Association for Interpretation, and University of Denver, where he is pursuing his PhD.
